what features/behaviors in an rss reader would impress you?
That"s probably part of the problem.

I'm not sure but I'll know it if I see it. Basically I'm use to Google Reader.
Liferea is good except I haven't found a way to adjust the RSS display font default size to one I can read. Sure I can hit plus but I'd like a permanent solution. Maybe it's there and I haven't found it. Menu fonts and such are fine, probably because I already use custom GTK fonts but that doesn't seem to affect the browser display.
Second problem there seems to be no way to display all the articles in a feed so I can just scroll through them. Instead I have to click on them one at a time.
Akregator the display with the tree view on the left is just more cluttered then I like. Reminds me of a Usenet reader and I always disliked that in them. I use to use Xnews because I could configure it to single pane.
Now if someone could tell me in steps I could understand how to fix the error message "RSSOwl was unable to create a browser for reading news" I'd be glad to try it. It looks promising.... if it worked.